I leave the ferry with my English Ting-Tong travel buddy in hot pursuit telling me repeatedly that we need to find a cheap guesthouse. Now I have no intentions to share a guesthouse, let well a room with this little young and hyper-active s*x tourist from Jolly Old England so I head to the Nathon Residence, big and spacious rooms all with satelite TV and a balcony for 300 Baht.

The female Chinese receptionist Wais me the moment I walk in, heavy backpack strapped to my shoulder, sweaty T-shirt and greasy old jeans notwithstanding I seem to deserve the Thai Wai - what is that makes the Thai feel so apologetic to us The Farangs? Her clasped hands in front of her jiil face - Chinese in Thai - go up even higher when her ink black eyes discern the buddha pendant dangling on my chest reminding me that the Chinese minority in Thailand are even more ferociously superstitious as the Thai.

I Wai her back politely carefully keeping my own clasped hands a bit lower down my face as hers and thereby acknowledging her show of respect.

The old Chinese man sitting in the lobby, small frame dressed in a drab white singlet, wobbly leathery legs sticking out of a pair of grizzly white shorts watching the free show from over his newspaper, chinese characters screaming at me from the newspaper`s front, approving looks from beady eyes than he returns to his main source of entertainment...his newspaper.

I wonder how come Chinese hotels anywhere in Asia always seem to have old Chinese men sitting around in their underwear reading Chinese newspapers???

Walking up the stairs in front of me bringing me to my room of me chatting gaily in a weird mix of Thai and English I see the small but elaborate Tattoo of the Chinese Ryu on the back of her calf.

She sits on the massive bed in my room watching me unpack, wanting to know "you have lady"? Out in the street a Chinese festival is in full swing, Chinese dragon dancing, fire crackers going off, people in weird Chinese costumes and masks going from Chinese shop to the next Chinese house...tables outside with offerings...a pick-up truck carrying Burmese day workers back to their hovels dirty towels wrapped around their heads...I wanna get out and watch the festivities but instead I find myself captured by the shapely legs of a Chinese receptioniust lady who seems in no hurry to return to her reception.

My English Ting-Tong friend would have loved this hotel!!!

written by  heraclio on April 21, 2009 from Ko Samui, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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Primitive sorcery, superstitious beliefs and a fascination with the animal spirituality are rife in the head of any Thai, be it male or female. Even the ferry from Kho Tao to Kho Samui has a small spirit house with burning insence that brings some relief to the air inside which is heavy with sigarette smoke, the crying of a baby that competes with the blaring on the inevitable TV system right next to the spirit house, showing a movie that I am unable to concentrate on.

Half an adult life of coming to the Kingdom of the Smile, experiences and events, incidents, all dismantled and stored somewhere in the darker and deeper recesses of my Farang mind, Asian images and oriental thinking colliding with a Western trained soul.

The primitive sorcery of undereducated peasant daughters from Thailand`s poor north grasping my Phii, taking hold of my emotional state of mind, no Karmic benefits to win by falling in love with a Thai Lady of the Night but a ravaged heart confused by cultural differences and a Western cultivated Guilt Complex.

"I love Thai girls", a young skinny English Bloke with a Cockney accent tells me eagerly, his adam`s apple bobbing up and down in his throat nervously while he sipps coke from the straw sticking out of a transperant platic bag. His big hooked nose and protruding horse teeth give him the appearance of a mouse, or maybe a skinny rat.

"Mon, I tell you, for a few hundert stupid Baht they give you more fun than any b*tch back home", he continues while his small frame seems to be wrestling with the upholstery of his seat, his pale blue eyes scanning the the other passengers constantly in an irritant sort of way.

"Hey, mon, Kho Samui, that is where all the scum of the world lives", "I should know, I live there".

Trying to ignore this Ting-Tong - crazy in Thai - victim of a continueing s*xual war, trying hard to shut out the on-going noicy video on the monitor, I return to my mental pondering.

There are moments that this Endless Narrative inside my head is welcome after all!!!

written by  heraclio on April 20, 2009 from Ko Samui, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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As a human I`m at the end of a Karmic cycle being in the possession of the posibility to move on to the Buddhist concept of Nirvana, the Christian belief of Heaven or maybe a one-way ticket to Allah`s divine Kingdom.

The only thing I`ve to do is listen to the morality of my eternal soul, maybe enter a Thai Wat and get involved in Vipassana meditation, look for alms early morning and reject all wordly possessions, no more power, dominance, money grapping and all that comes with it, but most importantly...no more exoticism, no more erotic encounters with a post-coital coffee drinking session the next morning in a beach-side local restaurant looking in the still sleepy but highly satisfied eyes of a backpack lady from far away Europe

I enter the Cave Bar just after midnight having erotic encounters on my mind. The door is flanked by a gypsum Fred Flintstone, a fitting doorman considering the name of the bar.

Inside I discern more members of the Flintstone family place at random around the dank interior, kersosene lanterns hanging from the ceiling spread a difuse light in which I see the shadowy figures of a crowd of mostly youngsters somewhere in their mid twenties, alternative types with long Rasta hair, suntanned blondes with Scandinavian accents, brunettes with glossy lips speaking French and a few local waitresses hurrying from table to table.

Having a Black Cat whiskey at the wooden bar I eavesdrop on conversations around me, different languages of ancient Europe besieging my Farang ears,

"got my dive instructor`s certificate today".

"wir haben heute mit einer Grupe Scheiss Holländer getaucht".

"Vädern war mycket vacker idag".

Sultry eyes when I try to make eye contact with a balk haired petite that looks like French blood rules her veins. Rejected looks from a duo of blondes that were just discussing today`s weather in their native tongue. No way I`m gonna give the Bavarian lady dive masters a go...they just called my nationality Scheisse - sh*t.

I actually realise I`m in the local dive masters` hang-out. Dominance and arrogance are floating around here. No erotic chances for me in this place...I`m after all not a dive master living on a tropical oriental paradise...a lesser human being that doesn`t deserve their physical attentions....I`ve embarked upon their private territory by simply walking into this bar...better I fall in love with my Black Cat whiskey, order some more and annoy this crowd with my mere presence in their divine Temple of Gossip.

I`m three quarters on the way to total oblivion when I stagger home, back to my 300Baht bungalow through a dark Kho Tao, an opaque moon the only witness to my drunk raving.

written by  heraclio on April 19, 2009 from Ko Tao, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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The gigantic flatscreen TV in the Flower Restaurant shows an over-muscled Arnold Schwarzenegger quick-shooting his enemies with an enormous gun, his face full with camouflage colors and set in a grotesque grin, explosions go off all around him killing off even more enemy combatants but miraculously leaving Mister Universe unscathed.

Most of the other diners` eyes are literally glued to the screen, not mine though. I try to concentrate to the sounds of the waves rolling in advocating the beginning of high tide, I`m trying to enjoy my food, fried rice with barbequed squid which I caught myself today during my second day out at sea in my hired kayak.

It is not Arnie`s actions on the screen that disturb my mental peace tonight, nor the loud "Cocaine In My Brain" Reggae music from Dillinger originating from the neighboring Cave Bar where I plan to drink a Kloster later and look for a possible nighttime partner....

In my mind I hear Jamie, I`m back in that rotten police holding cell in Krung Thep, sitting on that dark brown wooden floor full with cracks and holes through which bold big cockroaches would emerge and the dirty rats that chased them...I can hear his narrative on the Farang/Thai connection...

Zoom in...

He is effortlessly showing off his superior oriental mind over my Farang way of thinking, explainig his grasp of Farang weaknesses...how middle-aged Farang men the world over come to Thailand looking for the simplest of the simplest, looking for a lady who will respect them and give them good s*x...a life time of slaving away for the boss desperate for promotion, fustrated by stress, endless hours in traffic jams, teenage children that reject him and a nagging wife that has spent most of her adult life on the couch munching bon-bons and is presently enjoying his monthly payments as determined by a Farang jugde while enjoying the physical attentions of a young lover...

He comes to the East wondering what the heck he is doing here, he listens to the girls often the age of his own daughters tell him he is s*xy man, "me love you too much you handsome s*xy man".

For the price of a lady`s drink - not more than 35 Baht - they give him in a mere 30 minutes more female attention than his wife has given him in full life time of marriage, when he takes her home - after paying her 200 Baht bar fine and taking her back to his room, his Farang heart heavy with feelings of Typical Western Guilt, he will find out more about Coital Behaviour as he has seen during secretely watching p*rn in dirty s*x cinemas half his married life.

She will hold his hand while they walk on the boulevard, giggling in her oh-so-feminine way, telling him repeatedly how handsome, how s*xy, how good he make Bam-Bam for her, easing his guild feeling, making him feel quite the catch...

He doesn`t realise he has walked into a female elefant trap!!!

Zoom out...

I really need a beer in that Cave Bar now!!!

written by  heraclio on April 18, 2009 from Ko Tao, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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I`m still suffering from a lethel dose of heart burn after my night together with Nong in Krung Thep - as the Thais call Bangkok. Maybe a Farang lady-friend for a week or so could take care of my emotional stability, a week of passion on this tropical paradise where the main topic of conversation is scuba diving, where the food at the numerous beach restaurants is excelent and cheap, a light constant breeze coming in from the ocean keeping the temperature warm but not unbearable hot.

I`m out at sea now with my kayak working myself into a sweat while the sun is watching my progress in a hot sort of way.

I want to circle the privately owned tripartite island Kho Nang-Yuan, three little rocky islets connected at low tide by idyllic looking sand banks and a favourite day trip from Kho Tao.

The first time I was on Kho Tao I moved to Kho Nang-Yuan for about a week renting a small bungalow on one island and eating my meals in the one and only restaurant on the main island. Early evening with low tide strolling across the sand bank to the main island was easy, but late at night with my poor head heavy on Mekhong whiskey and a high tide I had to cross through chest deep sea holding my clothes above my head scared that the small reef sharks I had seen during the day`s snorkling would bite off my...well, you know what!!!

I paddle between a couple of Thai fishing boats with some sleepy fishing men with blurry eyes watching my work-out. Small fish jump across the sea`s surface and seagulls in a stark blue sky trying to catch them in mid air. A big cruise ship in Kho Nang-Yuan`s bay unloading middle-aged japanese tourists each of them wearing a brightly colored life vest, snorkle in hands the hue of porcelain, all excited at the prospect of seeing the creatures of King Neptue`s watery kingdom.

I feel in love with the whole universe while I paddle on passing several dive shop boats, dive students bobbing up and down in the water, scuba bottles tied to their backs listening attentively to their instructor, a muscular blond giant with a swedish accent whose eyes are openly flirting with a petite black haired lady who is nearly hanging from his lips. I have no doubt his company for the coming night is already assured.

My love for the whole universe is encompassing the nirvanic universe as well now due to the enormous amounts of dopamine releasing themselves in my farang mind mixing with the hormonal overload that is a left over from my night with Nong.

I pass another fishing boat, a few ragged kids emerge to blatantly stare at me, "bon bon, mister, please", I hear before paddling on leaving Kho Nang-Yuan behind, having done the loop around this privately owned rocky and green set of islets, back on the way to Kho Tao

written by  heraclio on April 17, 2009 from Ko Tao, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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For a moment I believe my eyes are alive with neon light, for a moment I see a gold colored light beaming off an endless and interminable row of Buddhas whose crazy but divine smiles grin at me in a mystic way, trying to tell me something.....?

Did he know my dream, being back on that motorbike taxi deftly avoiding elefants in the hectic traffic of Bangkok`s China Town with its countless chinese owned juwelery shops, Chinese characters screaming at me in the colors yellow and gold, Farang tourists in the streets, quick camara shooting the Chinese New Year Dragon and fire crackers going off, on my way to Nong in the Shangria-La Hotel, nearly sh*tting myself with fright while the endless narrative keeps churning through my Farang head trying so hard to work out my Farang/Oriental connexion.

No neon lights but the hot rays of a not so early Thai ocean sun shining through the windows of my 300 baht bungalow hitting the gold Buddha pendant hanging from the bed post and beating off it right into my eyes, no screaming Chinese voices in China Town or the smells of numerous food stalls lining the streets in a crowded third world town.

Instead I wake up to the sounds of waves rolling in from the sea, the singing of birds in the resort`s garden, the Jamaican reggea music in the resort`s restaurant, the salty smell of a grand ocean full with tropical fish that attracts foreign tourists from all over the world bend on getting their Padi Dive Certificate and feasting their eyes on all that down under the surface of the sea, beautifull sea life created by Mother Nature.

I walk through small sandy lanes lined by souvenir shops, clothes made of silk and cotton sold at rediculous cheap prices, restaurants that have wooden signs outside proclaiming the movies they will play on their VCR systems tonight. But most of all I see dive shops, more dive shops and even more dive shops with fancy names like The Big Blue, Calypso Diving, Grand Coral Diving and the like.

It is not diving I am after today though....I wanna go out and enjoy the tranquility of the azure blue mighty ocean, be on my own while the sun overhead my Farang head will build up a nice suntan on my still white European skin. No doubt it will be a sweaty skin today considering I wanna go out there under my own force, rent an one-person kayak, paddle and paddle with a soft refreshing sea breeze in my face blowing away that d*rned endless narrative in my head, that smart bomb that is programmed to go off inside my skull every time I set food on Thai soil.

written by  heraclio on April 15, 2009 from Ko Tao, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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No more fat middle-aged men walking the boulevard in [[Myanmar-(Burma)/Pattaya]] with a Hot Momma on their arm maybe half their age, girls that look like overjoyed pussycats that have finally nailed a fat mouse - the word "fat" goes both ways here I presume.

Instead I look at male hard muscled farang bodies in shorts with bare upper chests, well suntanned and bleaches blond hair working at one of the many dive shops that dot the island, as dive masters and dive instructors.

Young European ladies with a sarong wrapped around well defined gold colored hips and legs, a bikini top completing the exotic dress attire, proudly walking around the sand tracks on Kho Tao feeling happy with their lives, content to work here on this little tropical pearl in the Thai ocean.

Scuba diving is the main attraction of Kho Tao with people coming from all over the world to get their Padi Dive Certificate here at all over the island scattered dive schools which are with no exception managed by Farang people.

Working in this business, on this beautiful location, three times a day in the azure blue sea scuba diving, good excersize and clean air, the nights filled with laughter and fun while going out with your scuba customers from the day eating good non-preserved fresh food at one of the many beach restaurants. Fresh fish right out of 0the sea, from the pot onto your plate.

Who can blame these people they even get a "teeny bit" arogant about their paradise life style, get this thing in their stupid farang head they are on a higher level than their backpack customers with whom they often have post-coital coffee drinking in the morning after.

I should know...I lived that life myself for a while right here on this very island.

My third time on Kho Tao - which means Turtle Island by the way - and I see more dive shops, more beach front restaurants, more resorts, more tourist shops and higher prises.

written by  heraclio on April 14, 2009 from Ko Tao, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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The Somtam with sticky rice I had during my dinner with Nong is slowly and pleasurably being digested ny my belly`s digestive juices which I`m rewarding with Black Cat Whiskey mixed with cubes of ice and a generous shot of Red Bull energy drink - not a combination to try unless You wanna get drunk fast and furious!!!

I`m lying on the massive bed of her room at the Shangri-La Hotel courtesy of her Norwegian sugar daddy who is presently presiding in Oslo, due back in about a week.

The room is nearly as big as my house in Amsterdam, the bed four times the size of the cot that is in the little room I rent back at Bangkok`s rowdy tourist district Khao Sarn Road, the Nat 2 Guesthouse.

Big mirrors beaming my own reflections back at me, and a private fridge stocked with Singha Beer and bottles of whiskey and wodka, a box of expensive Cuban sigars on top of it.

Nong is on the bed next to me making photos of herself with my digital camara - the Thai love modern technology!!! Her eyes happy and full with life still, talking to me, analysing my Farang male soul, goiing on and on like the endless narative inside my head that by now is getting quite drunk I might add.

Nong is a woman who started her life back in the Isaan minding water buffalo and playing with her contemporaries in the dusty sandy streets of just another little
third world hamlet, a down trotten Karen mother, yet another erfugee from the brutal and insane regime that still to today rules Burma, her father a Thai boozer on moonshine whiskey and a frequent visitor to the local pool-hall which is the Thai equivalent of a wh*rehouse.

She came to Bangkok when she was 15 together with her one year older brother Jamie losing her virginity the same night to a drunk - mau to the max - Farang who beat the cr*p out of her because he couldn`t get it up due to the heavy amounts of Mekhong in his blood.

Thausends of Farang males followed suit, a shorttime or a longtime, taking her to exotic paradises like Kho Chang or Kho Phi-Phi, a trip to Paris and another to Koln, using her body like there was no tomorrow.. and at times more aggression, more beatings by mau farangs with incompetence problems due to alcohol related causes.

But tonight she is choi-choi because we`re back together drinking Black Cat Whiskey and she can amuse herself with my digital camara, she can analyse my Farang soul again, discuss our Dek-Dek and Jamie`s Phii which she is sure is housing in little baby Charlotte`s body. After all baby Charlotte was conceived three months after Jamie`s watery death in the 2004 Tsunami.

written by  heraclio on April 11, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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All Bangkok taxi drivers are superstitious to the max, often orinating from Thailand`s poor north, wearing several Buddha pendants around their necks, go to the wat every morning to make an offering of rice, garlands and moonshine whiskey, cuban sigars and sigarettes to the spirits that rule their fears, the spiritual world of the goddess whose image adourns the inside of Bangkok taxis, whose pendant hangs around the necks of the countless motorbike taxi drivers in this huge staeming metropole.

I try to concentrate on the powerfull Buddha pendant hanging around my own farang neck, my tighs clasped tightly against the upperlegs of the taxi driver while he skillfully wringles through the Bangkok traffic jams. I fear for my kneecaps with only centimeters to spare at both sides, mere inches to the cars we pass at both sides, we round a corner at a 45 degree angle paying no heed to all the people who crowd the streets of Bangkok`s China Town.

Bangkok`s Chinese population preparing for the upcoming Chinese New Year. The admosphere is festive with many farangs mixing with the crowd of mostly in red dressed locals, elefants marching down Charoen Krung Thanon, the Chinese dragon dancing in the street while fire crackers go off at an deavening sound, farang tourists desperately trying to capture it all with digital camaras, endless rows of chinese shops all having a small spirit temple nailed to the wall, the bony faces of Khatoes disapaer behind me while my driver carefully avoids two fat Americans tourist ladies, white cotton dresses spanning over large layers of pink behinds "wow, did you see the elfants?"

Then the mayhem is behind me when we leave the Chinese District. We pass the Wat Traimit were I tell the driver to stop, I want to make a quick offering to Lord Buddha before my dinner date with Nong.

The expensive five star Shangri-La Hotel is set on the bank of the Chao Praya River and while I pay my driver, tipping him generously and wishing him a safe night with many customers so he can visit the girly bars tonight - I know the Thai after all - I watch the hotel`s security guards dressed in their heavenly blue uniforms, handcuffs and battons dangling from their belts, playing Thai checkers at a wooden table with Chang bottle tops.

I enter the gigantic lobby, my heat heavy like a whole brick wall is pressing down on it, trying to think about the good Thai food I will soon eat, trying to ignore the stupid fact I`ll in mere minutes meet the most important woman in my life.

For a moment I feel like running away as I`ve been running all of my life but then I see her, a bit more full in the face, a bit more weight on her once lith small body...she sees me too, walking toward me slowly...we wai each other politely, she carefully holding her clasped hands a bit lower down her face as mine and therby showing me respect, no embraces and public shows of emotionsas is common in the West but frowned upon in King Bhumipol`s Nation.

written by  heraclio on April 10, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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How make Karma work, by paying free Tiger Beer to Hot Mommas on Pattaya`s boulevard, give them the key to your room so they can have a much needed shower, a quick nap on the bed, let them have the worthless bunch of second hand T-shirts that I put in my backpack just for that occasion?

The hidden structures of an oriental society of moral and evil, Jai-Dee or Cheap Charley. I`m not really sure about my farang status in this mystifying nation with its superstitious people whose bodies often carry the weirdest tattoes of chinese dragons and other non-excistent animals from the world of the myths and Asian legends, their crazy fascination with animal behaviour, their total and complete devotion to spirituality as a whole with every house having its own spirit house.

I can make no sense of male chauvinist local views on women. They talk about them like they are only around to be used but at the same time as a society they give them more personal freedom than quite a few countries I could mention. Where every local male should have a Mia-Noi or else he is not considered a real man but at the same moment don`t care a temple rat`s *ss they sell their nubile bodies en masse to degenerate farang males.

The endless narrative churns through my farang head while I work in Lumpini Park in Bangkok, an oasis of green in an otherwise gray concrete jungle of skyscrapers, a super-jammed traffic flow at any hour of the day and often at night, with more food hawkers then there are restaurants in the whole of my native Holland.

This is a busy city, one of the biggest in the world!!!

I`m holding hands with a twenty year old Eurasian female of a rare beauty who is talking happily to me, who keeps giggling about the photos of baby Charlotte, her half sister "ay, she beautifull have uncle Jamie`s eyes, me like photo with she sleep", and on and on she goes.

I`m acutely aware of the mental gossiping going on in the minds of an elderly farang couple just passing us, another European s*x-tourist with a local girlfriend not even half his age, she could well be his daughter so young she still is.

Well guys, I have news for you....SHE IS MY DAUGHTER, the product of me and Nong whom I`ll meet later tonight.

written by  heraclio on April 9, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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